Education Readings: “Golden Lines,” Reflection, Connection Due: Monday, October 7, 2019 1. Before reading the assigned pieces, please do a 8-10 minute free-write in which you reflect upon your time as a student within whatever educational system (or systems) you have experienced thus far. Some questions that might prompt your thinking: · Do you enjoy being in school? What do you like about school? What do you dislike? Was there a shift in your attitude toward school at some point in your educational career? If so, what caused this shift? · Have you had teachers or classes that stand out in your mind as particularly inspiring, challenging, or relevant? Have you had classes or teachers who stand out as particularly dull, easy, or irrelevant? · Did you feel like you’ve been encouraged to think creatively and take risks during your time as a student? Do you feel like your education has helped to prepare you to successfully navigate life outside of school? · Do you think the public education system serves all students equally? Why or why not? · Having gone through at least twelve years of schooling thus far, what are your feelings about the educational system? Are there specific things you would like to see changed? Are there specific things that you believe work well? Again, these questions are simply meant to prompt your thinking. Don’t feel you have to address all of them. Pick the one that sparks a response and use that as your springboard. Please write for at least 8 minutes without stopping. This can be handwritten or typed, whichever you prefer. 2. Please read and annotate the following readings: · “The Joy of Learning.” This is the preface to a book by Edward B. Burger called, Making Up Your Mind: Thinking Effectively through Creative Puzzle-Solving. You will be reading the preface and the first two chapters of his book. They’re very short, so don’t worry! · “Claiming an Education,” Adrienne Rich. It’s important to consider that this essay was originally a speech given to students at Douglass College, an all-female institution, in 1977. Look over the questions in the “What Do You Think” section at the end of the essay. You don’t have to answer them in writing, but think about them because they might offer an interesting point of entry into our class discussion on Monday. · “Only Connect…,” William Cronon. This is an essay that was published in an academic journal in 1998. When I say “read and annotate,” I mean that I want you to actively engage with the text. Highlight or underline sentences or passages that stand out to you – the “golden lines,” I like to call them. These are the bits of text that strike a chord with you for one reason or another – sometimes it’s because you can relate on a personal level, or because the writing is particularly good or the idea is particularly well stated, or because you don’t fully understand or agree with what the author is saying, or because you feel like that line perfe ...

1. Education Readings: “Golden Lines,” Reflection, Connection
Due: Monday, October 7, 2019
1. Before reading the assigned pieces, please do a 8-10
minute free-write in which you reflect upon your time as a
student within whatever educational system (or systems) you
have experienced thus far. Some questions that might prompt
your thinking:
· Do you enjoy being in school? What do you like about
school? What do you dislike? Was there a shift in your attitude
toward school at some point in your educational career? If so,
what caused this shift?
· Have you had teachers or classes that stand out in your mind
as particularly inspiring, challenging, or relevant? Have you
had classes or teachers who stand out as particularly dull, easy,
or irrelevant?
· Did you feel like you’ve been encouraged to think creatively
and take risks during your time as a student? Do you feel like
your education has helped to prepare you to successfully
navigate life outside of school?
· Do you think the public education system serves all students
equally? Why or why not?
· Having gone through at least twelve years of schooling thus
far, what are your feelings about the educational system? Are
there specific things you would like to see changed? Are there
specific things that you believe work well?
Again, these questions are simply meant to prompt your
thinking. Don’t feel you have to address all of them. Pick the
one that sparks a response and use that as your springboard.
Please write for at least 8 minutes without stopping. This can
be handwritten or typed, whichever you prefer.

2. 2. Please read and annotate the following readings:
· “The Joy of Learning.” This is the preface to a book by
Edward B. Burger called, Making Up Your Mind: Thinking
Effectively through Creative Puzzle-Solving. You will be
reading the preface and the first two chapters of his book.
They’re very short, so don’t worry!
· “Claiming an Education,” Adrienne Rich. It’s important to
consider that this essay was originally a speech given to
students at Douglass College, an all-female institution, in 1977.
Look over the questions in the “What Do You Think” section at
the end of the essay. You don’t have to answer them in writing,
but think about them because they might offer an interesting
point of entry into our class discussion on Monday.
· “Only Connect…,” William Cronon. This is an essay that was
published in an academic journal in 1998.
When I say “read and annotate,” I mean that I want you to
actively engage with the text. Highlight or underline sentences
or passages that stand out to you – the “golden lines,” I like to
call them. These are the bits of text that strike a chord with you
for one reason or another – sometimes it’s because you can
relate on a personal level, or because the writing is particularly
good or the idea is particularly well stated, or because you don’t
fully understand or agree with what the author is saying, or
because you feel like that line perfectly captures the main idea
of the piece. After reading each piece jot down 2-3 questions or
comments you have in response. You can write these directly
on the readings.
3. After reading all three, write a 1-2 page response in which
you reflect upon all three readings, my syllabus, our class
discussion today, the UNST video (I’m hoping I have time to
show it in class, if not disregard). What are your thoughts

3. about the ideas these writers have on education? Are you
noticing connections between these pieces, recurring ideas or
themes? What have you taken away from these readings? What
thoughts have you had in response? Please type this response.
We will be discussing these readings in class on
Wednesday, so please bring all three with you, along with your
typed response and your opening reflection.
So to recap, here’s what’s due next Monday:
· Education reflection (done before reading)
· Highlighted and annotated readings, with 2-3 questions written
on each
· 1-2 page typed response
Education Readings: “Golden Lines,” Reflection, Connection
Due: Monday, October 7, 2019
1. Before reading the assigned pieces, please do a 8-10
minute free-write in which you reflect upon your time as a
student within whatever educational system (or systems) you
have experienced thus far. Some questions that might prompt
your thinking:
· Do you enjoy being in school? What do you like about
school? What do you dislike? Was there a shift in your attitude
toward school at some point in your educational career? If so,
what caused this shift?
· Have you had teachers or classes that stand out in your mind
as particularly inspiring, challenging, or relevant? Have you
had classes or teachers who stand out as particularly dull, easy,
or irrelevant?
· Did you feel like you’ve been encouraged to think creatively

4. and take risks during your time as a student? Do you feel like
your education has helped to prepare you to successfully
navigate life outside of school?
· Do you think the public education system serves all students
equally? Why or why not?
· Having gone through at least twelve years of schooling thus
far, what are your feelings about the educational system? Are
there specific things you would like to see changed? Are there
specific things that you believe work well?
Again, these questions are simply meant to prompt your
thinking. Don’t feel you have to address all of them. Pick the
one that sparks a response and use that as your springboard.
Please write for at least 8 minutes without stopping. This can
be handwritten or typed, whichever you prefer.
2. Please read and annotate the following readings:
· “The Joy of Learning.” This is the preface to a book by
Edward B. Burger called, Making Up Your Mind: Thinking
Effectively through Creative Puzzle-Solving. You will be
reading the preface and the first two chapters of his book.
They’re very short, so don’t worry!
· “Claiming an Education,” Adrienne Rich. It’s important to
consider that this essay was originally a speech given to
students at Douglass College, an all-female institution, in 1977.
Look over the questions in the “What Do You Think” section at
the end of the essay. You don’t have to answer them in writing,
but think about them because they might offer an interesting
point of entry into our class discussion on Monday.
· “Only Connect…,” William Cronon. This is an essay that was
published in an academic journal in 1998.
When I say “read and annotate,” I mean that I want you to
actively engage with the text. Highlight or underline sentences

5. or passages that stand out to you – the “golden lines,” I like to
call them. These are the bits of text that strike a chord with you
for one reason or another – sometimes it’s because you can
relate on a personal level, or because the writing is particularly
good or the idea is particularly well stated, or because you don’t
fully understand or agree with what the author is saying, or
because you feel like that line perfectly captures the main idea
of the piece. After reading each piece jot down 2-3 questions or
comments you have in response. You can write these directly
on the readings.
3. After reading all three, write a 1-2 page response in which
you reflect upon all three readings, my syllabus, our class
discussion today, the UNST video (I’m hoping I have time to
show it in class, if not disregard). What are your thoughts
about the ideas these writers have on education? Are you
noticing connections between these pieces, recurring ideas or
themes? What have you taken away from these readings? What
thoughts have you had in response? Please type this response.
We will be discussing these readings in class on
Wednesday, so please bring all three with you, along with your
typed response and your opening reflection.
So to recap, here’s what’s due next Monday:
· Education reflection (done before reading)
· Highlighted and annotated readings, with 2-3 questions written
on each
· 1-2 page typed response
“Only C onnect…”
The Goals of a Liberal Education

6. W illiam C ronon
W hat does it mean to be a liberally educated person? It seems
such a simple question,
especially given the frequency w ith w hich colleges and
universities genuflect tow ard this w ell-
w orn phrase as the central icon of their institutional missions.
Mantra-lik e, the w ords are
endlessly repeated, starting in the glossy admissions brochures
that high school students
receive by the hundreds in their mailboxes and continuing right
dow n to the last tired
invocations they hear on commencement day . It w ould be
surprising indeed if the phrase did
not begin to sound at least a little empty after so much
repetition, and surely undergraduates
can be forgiven if they eventually regard liberal educat i o n a
s ei t h e r a m a r k e t i n g p l o y o r a
sh i b b o l et h . Y et m a n y o f u s co n t i n u e t o p l a ce
g r ea t st o ck i n t h ese w o r d s,
b el i ev i n g t h em t o d escr i b e o n e o f t h e u l t i m a t
e g o o d s t h a t a co l l eg e o r u n i v er si t y
sh o u l d ser v e. So w h a t ex a ct l y d o w e m ea n b y l
i b er a l ed u ca t i o n , a n d w h y d o w e
ca r e so m u ch a b o u t i t ?
In speak ing of “liberal” education, w e certainly do n o t mean
an education that indoctrinates
students in the values of political liberalism, at least not in the
most obvious sense of the latter
phrase. R ather, w e use these w ords to describe an educational
tradition that celebrates and
nurtures human freedom. These day s lib e r al and libe r ty
have become w ords so mired in

7. controversy , embraced and reviled as they have been by the
far ends of the political spectrum,
that w e scarcely k now how to use them w ithout turning
them into slogans—but they can
hardly be separated from this educational tradition. Libe r al
derives from the Latin libe r alis,
meaning “of or relating to the liberal arts,” w hich in turn
derives from the Latin w ord libe r ,
meaning “free.” But the w ord actually has much deeper roots,
being ak in to the Old English
w ord le o d an , meaning “to grow ,” and leo d , meaning
“people.” It is also related to the Greek
w ord eleu ther o s, meaning “free,” and goes all the w ay back
to the Sansk rit w ord r o d hati,
meaning “one climbs,” “one grow s.” Fr e e d o m and g r o w
th: here, surely , are values that lie at the
very core of w hat w e mean w hen w e speak of a liberal
education.
Liberal education is built on these values: it aspires to nurture
the grow th of human talent
in the service of human freedom. So one very simple answ er to
my question is that liberally
educated people have been liberated by their education to
explore and fulfill the promise of
their ow n highest talents. But w hat might an education for
human freedom actually look lik e?
There’s the rub. Our current culture w ars, our struggles over
educational standards are all
ultimately about the concrete embodiment of abstract values lik
e “freedom” and “grow th” in
actual courses and textbook s and curricular requirements.
Should students be forced to tak e
courses in A merican history , and if so, w hat should those
courses contain? Should they be
forced to learn a foreign language, encounter a laboratory

8. science, master calculus, study
grammar at the expense of creative w riting (or the reverse),
read Plato or Shak espeare or Marx
or Darw in? Should they be required to tak e courses that foster
ethnic and racial tolerance?
Even if w e agree about the importance of freedom and grow th,
w e can still disagree quite a lot
about w hich curriculum w ill best promote these values. That is
w hy , w hen w e argue about
education, w e usually spend less time talk ing about core
values than about formal standards:
w hat are the subjects that all y oung people should tak e to help
them become educated adults?
This is not an easy question. May be that is w hy —in the spirit
of E. D. H irsch’s C u ltu r al
Lite r ac y and a thousand college course catalogs—our answ
ers to it often tak e the form of lists:
lists of mandatory courses, lists of required readings, lists of
essential facts, lists of the hundred
best novels w ritten in English in the tw entieth century , and so
on and on. This impulse
tow ard list mak ing has in fact been part of liberal education
for a very long time. In their
original medieval incarnation, the “liberal arts” w ere required
courses, more or less, that every
student w as supposed to learn before attaining the status of a
“free man.” There w as nothing
vague about the ar te s libe r ale s. They w ere a very concrete
list of seven subjects: the tr iv iu m ,
w hich consisted of grammar, logic, and rhetoric; and the qu ad
r iv iu m , w hich consisted of

9. arithmetic, geometry , astronomy , and music. Together, these w
ere the forms of k now ledge
w orthy of a free man. W e should remember the pow erful
class and gender biases that w ere
built into this vision of freedom. The “free men” w ho studied
the liberal arts w ere male
aristocrats; these specialized bodies of k now ledge w ere status
mark ers that set them apart from
“unfree” serfs and peasants, as w ell as from the members of
other vulgar and ignoble classes.
Our modern sense of liberal education has expanded from this
medieval foundation to include
a greater range of human talents and a much more inclusive
number of human beings, holding
out at least the dream that e v e r y o n e might someday be
liberated by an education that stands in
the service of human freedom.
A nd y et w hen w e try to figure out w hat this education for
human freedom might look
lik e, w e still mak e lists. W e no longer hold up as a required
curriculum the seven ar te s libe r ale s
of the medieval university ; w e no longer expect that the
classical nineteenth-century college
curriculum in Greek and Latin is enough to mak e a person
learned. But w e d o offer plenty of
other complicated lists w ith w hich w e try to identify the
courses and distribution
requirements that constitute a liberal education. Such
requirements vary somew hat from
institution to institution, but certain elements crop up
predictably . H ow ever complex the
curricular tables and credit formulas may become—and they
can get pretty baroque!—more
often than not they include a certain number of total credit
hours; a basic composition course;

10. at least pre-calculus mathematics; some credits in a foreign
language; some credits in the
humanities; some credits in the social sciences; some credits in
the natural sciences; and
concentrated study in at least one major discipline.
W e have obviously come a long w ay from the ar te s libe r
ale s—and y et I w orry that amid all
these requirements w e may be tempted to forget the ultimate
purpose of this thing w e call a
liberal education. No matter how deliberately they may have
been hammered out in
committee meetings, it’s not clear w hat these carefully
articulated and finely tuned
requirements have to do w ith hu m an fr eed o m .
A n d w h en w e t r y t o st a t e t h e p u r p o se o f su ch r
eq u i r em en t s, w e o ft en
fl o u n d er . H er e, fo r i n st a n ce, i s w h a t o n e i n st i
t u t i o n I k n o w w el l st a t es a s the
“Objects of a Liberal Education”: “(1) competency in
communication; (2) competency in using
the modes of thought characterist i c o f t h e m a j o r a r ea s
o f k n o w l ed g e; (3 ) a k n o w l ed g e
o f o u r b a si c cu l t u r a l h er i t a g e; (4 ) a t h o r o u g
h u n d er st a n d i n g o f a t l ea st o n e su b j ect
a r ea . ” T h i s is the k ind of language one expects from an
academic committee, I guess, but it is
hardly a statement that stirs the heart or inspires the soul.
One problem, I think , is that it is much easier to itemize the
requirements of a curriculum
than to describe the qualities of the human beings w e w ould
lik e that curriculum to produce.
A ll the required courses in the w orld w ill fail to give us a
liberal education if, in the act of

11. requiring them, w e forget that their purpose is to nurture
human freedom and grow th.
I w ould therefore lik e to return to my opening question and
try to answ er it (since I too find
lists irresistible) w ith a list of my ow n. My list consists not
of required courses but of personal
qualities: the ten qualities I most admire in the people I k now
w ho seem to embody the values
of a liberal education. How does one recognize liberally
educated people?
1. The y liste n an d the y he ar .
This is so simple that it may not seem w orth say ing, but in
our distracted and over-busy
age, I think it’s w orth declaring that educated people k now
how to pay attention—to others
and to the w orld around them. They w ork hard to hear w hat
other people say . They can
follow an argument, track logical reasoning, detect illogic,
hear the emotions that lie behind
both the logic and the illogic, and ultimately empathize w ith
the person w ho is feeling those
emotions.
2. The y r e ad an d the y u n d e r stan d .
This too is ridiculously simple to say but very difficult to
achieve, since there are so many

12. w ay s of reading in our w orld. Educated people can appreciate
not only the front page of the
Ne w Yo r k Tim e s but also the arts section, the sports
section, the business section, the science
section, and the editorials. They can gain insight from not only
TH E AMERIC AN SC H O L A R
a n d t h e Ne w Y o r k R e v i e w o f B o o ks b u t a l so
fr o m Sc i e n t i f i c Am e r i c a n , t h e
Ec o n o m i st , t h e Na t i o n a l En q u i r e r , Vo g u e , a
n d R e a d e r ’ s D i g e st . T h ey can enjoy John
Milton and John Grisham. But sk illed readers k now how to
read far more than just w ords.
They are moved by w hat they see in a great art museum and
w hat they hear in a concert hall.
They recognize extraordinary athletic achievements; they are
engaged by classic and
contemporary w ork s of theater and cinema; they find in
television a valuable w indow on
popular culture. W hen they w ander through a forest or a w
etland or a desert, they can identify
the w ildlife and interpret the lay of the land. They can glance
at a farmer’s field and tell the
difference betw een soy beans and alfalfa. They recognize fine
craftsmanship, w hether by a
cabinetmak er or an auto mechanic. And they can surf the World
Wide Web. All of these are w ay s in
w hich the ey es and the ears are attuned to the w onders that
mak e up the human and the
natural w orlds. N one of us can possibly master all these forms
of “reading,” but educated
people should be competent in many of them and curious about
all of them.
3. They c an talk w ith an y o n e.
Educated people k now how to talk . They can give a speech,

13. ask thoughtful questions, and
mak e people laugh. They can hold a conversation w ith a high
school dropout or a Nobel
laureate, a child or a nursing- home resident, a factory w ork er
or a corporate president.
Moreover, they participate in such conversations not because
they lik e to talk about
themselves but because they are genuinely interested in others.
A friend of mine say s one of
the most important things his father ever told him w as that w
henever he had a conversation,
his job w as “to figure out w hat’s so neat about w hat the other
person does.” I cannot imagine a
more succinct description of this critically important quality .
4. The y c an w r ite c le ar ly an d pe r su asiv e ly an d m
o v in g ly .
W hat goes for talk ing goes for w riting as w ell: educated
people k now the craft of putting
w ords on paper. I’m not talk ing about parsing a sentence or
composing a paragraph, but about
expressing w hat is in their minds and hearts so as to teach,
persuade, and move the person w ho
reads their w ords. I am talk ing about w riting as a form of
touching, ak in to the touching that
happens in an exhilarating conversation.
5. The y c an so lv e a w id e v ar ie ty o f pu zzle s an d pr
o ble m s.

14. The ability to solve puzzles requires many sk ills, including a
basic comfort w ith numbers, a
familiarity w ith computers, and the recognition that many
problems that appear to turn on
questions of quality can in fact be reinterpreted as subtle
problems of quantity . These are the
sk ills of the analy st, the manager, the engineer, the critic: the
ability to look at a complicated
reality , break it into pieces, and figure out how it w ork s in
order to do practical things in the
real w orld. Part of the challenge in this, of course, is the ability
to put reality back together
again after having brok en it into pieces—for only by so doing
can w e accomplish practical
goals w ithout violating the integrity of the w orld w e are try
ing to change.
6. The y r e spe c t r ig o r n o t so m u c h fo r its o w n
sake bu t as a w ay o f se e kin g tr u th.
Truly educated people love learning, but they love w isdom
more. They can appreciate a
closely reasoned argument w ithout being unduly impressed by
mere logic. They understand
that k now ledge serves values, and they strive to put these tw
o—k now ledge and values—into
constant dialogue w ith each other. The ability to recognize
true rigor is one of the most
important achievements in any education, but it is w orthless,
even dangerous, if it is not placed
in the service of some larger vision that also renders it humane.
7. The y pr ac tic e hu m ility , to le r an c e , an d se lf-c r
itic ism .

15. This is another w ay of say ing that they can understand the
pow er of other people’s dreams
and nightmares as w ell as their ow n. They have the
intellectual range and emotional generosity
to step outside their ow n experiences and prejudices, thereby
opening themselves to
perspectives different from their ow n. From this commitment to
tolerance flow all those
aspects of a liberal education that oppose parochialism and
celebrate the w ider w orld: study ing
foreign languages, learning about the cultures of distant
peoples, exploring the history of long-
ago times, discovering the many w ay s in w hich men and w
omen have k now n the sacred and
given names to their gods. W ithout such encounters, w e cannot
learn how much people
differ—and how much they have in common.
8. The y u n d e r stan d ho w to g e t thin g s d o n e in the
w o r ld .
In describing the goal of his Rhodes Scholarships, C ecil
Rhodes spok e of try ing to identify
y oung people w ho w ould spend their lives engaged in w hat
he called “the w orld’s fight,” by
w hich he meant the struggle to leave the w orld a better place
than they had found it. Learning
how to get things done in the w orld in order to leave it a better
place is surely one of the most
practical and important lessons w e can tak e from our
education. It is fraught w ith peril because
the pow er to act in the w orld can so easily be abused—but w e
fool ourselves if w e think w e can
avoid acting, avoid exercising pow er, avoid joining the w
orld’s fight. A nd so w e study pow er

16. and struggle to use it w isely and w ell.
9. The y n u r tu r e an d e m po w e r the pe o ple ar o u n
d the m .
Nothing is more important in tempering the exercise of pow er
and shaping right action
than the recognition that no one ever acts alone. Liberally
educated people understand that
they belong to a community w hose prosperity and w ell-being
are crucial to their ow n, and
they help that community flourish by mak ing the success of
others possible. If w e speak of
education for freedom, then one of the crucial insights of a
liberal education must be that the
freedom of the individual is possible only in a free community ,
and vice versa. It is the
community that empow ers the free individual, just as it is free
individuals w ho lead and
empow er the community . The fulfillment of high talent, the
just exercise of pow er, the
celebration of human diversity : nothing so redeems these things
as the recognition that w hat
seem lik e personal triumphs are in fact the achievements of our
common humanity .
10. They follow E. M. Forster’s injunction from Howards
End: “Only connect . . .”
More than any thing else, being an educated person means
being able to see connections

17. that allow one to mak e sense of the w orld and act w ithin it in
creative w ay s. Every one of the
qualities I have described here—listening, reading, talk ing, w
riting, puzzle solving, truth
seek ing, seeing through other people’s ey es, leading, w ork ing
in a community —is finally about
connecting. A liberal education is about gaining the pow er and
the w isdom, the generosity and
the freedom to connect.
I believe w e should measure our educational sy stem—w hether
w e speak of grade schools or
universities—by how w ell w e succeed in training children
and y oung adults to aspire to these
ten qualities. I believe w e should judge ourselves and our
communities by how w ell w e succeed
in fostering and celebrating these qualities in each of us.
But I must offer tw o caveats. The first is that my original
question—“W hat does it mean to
be a liberally educated person?”—is misleading, deeply so,
because it suggests that one can
somehow tak e a group of courses, or accumulate a certain
number of credits, or undergo an
obligatory set of learning experiences, and emerge liberally
educated at the end of the process.
N othing could be further from the truth. A liberal education is
not something any of us ever
ac hie v e ; it is not a state. R ather, it is a w ay of living in the
face of our ow n ignorance, a w ay of
groping tow ard w isdom in full recognition of our ow n folly , a
w ay of educating ourselves
w ithout any illusion that our educations w ill ever be
complete.
My second caveat has to do w ith individualism. It is no

18. accident that an educational
philosophy described as “liberal” is almost alw ay s articulated
in terms of the individuals w ho
are supposed to benefit from its teachings. I have similarly
implied that the ten qualities on my
list belong to individual people. I have asserted that liberal
education in particular is about
nurturing human freedom—helping y oung people discover and
hone their talents—and this too
sounds as if education exists for the benefit of individuals.
A ll this is fair enough, and y et it too is deeply misleading in
one crucial w ay . Education for
human freedom is also education for human community . The tw
o cannot exist w ithout each
other. Each of the qualities I have described is a craft or a sk ill
or a w ay of being in the w orld
that frees us to act w ith greater k now ledge or pow er. But
each of these qualities also mak es us
ever more aw are of the connections w e have w ith other people
and the rest of creation, and so
they remind us of the obligations w e have to use our k now
ledge and pow er responsibly . If I
am right that all these qualities are finally about connecting,
then w e need to confront one
further paradox about liberal education. In the act of mak ing us
free, it also binds us to the
communities that gave us our freedom in the first place; it mak
es us responsible to those
communities in w ay s that limit our freedom. In the end, it
turns out that liberty is not about
think ing or say ing or doing w hatever w e w ant. It is about
exercising our freedom in such a
w ay as to mak e a difference in the w orld and mak e a
difference for more than just ourselves.

19. And so I k eep returning to those tw o w ords of E. M. Forster’s:
“Only connect.” I have said
that they are as good an answ er as any I k now to the
question of w hat it means to be a
liberally educated person; but they are also an equally fine
description of that most pow erful
and generous form of human connection w e call lo v e . I do
not mean romantic or passionate
love, but the love that lies at the heart of all the great religious
faiths: not eros, but agape.
Liberal education nurtures human freedom in the service of
human community , w hich is to
say that in the end it celebrates love. W hether w e speak of
our schools or our universities or
ourselves, I hope w e w ill hold fast to this as our constant
practice, in the full depth and
richness of its many meanings: O n ly c o n n ec t.
From The Am er ic an Sc ho lar , Volume 67, No. 4, A utumn
1998. C opy right ® 1998 by W illiam C ronon.
W illiam C ronon, Frederick Jack son Turner Professor of H
istory , Geography , and Environmental
Studies at the U niversity of W isconsin-Madison, is the author
of Un c o m m o n Gr o u n d : Rethin kin g the
Hu m an Plac e in Natu r e and Natu r e’s Metr o po lis: Chic
ag o an d the Gr eat West, w hich w on the Bancroft
Prize in 1992.

20. “Only C onnect…”
The Goals of a Liberal Education
W illiam C ronon
W hat does it mean to be a liberally educated person? It seems
such a simple question,
especially given the frequency w ith w hich colleges and
universities genuflect tow ard this w ell-
w orn phrase as the central icon of their institutional missions.
Mantra-lik e, the w ords are
endlessly repeated, starting in the glossy admissions brochures
that high school students
receive by the hundreds in their mailboxes and continuing right
dow n to the last tired
invocations they hear on commencement day . It w ould be
surprising indeed if the phrase did
not begin to sound at least a little empty after so much
repetition, and surely undergraduates
can be forgiven if they eventually regard liberal educat i o n a
s ei t h e r a m a r k e t i n g p l o y o r a
sh i b b o l et h . Y et m a n y o f u s co n t i n u e t o p l a ce
g r ea t st o ck i n t h ese w o r d s,
b el i ev i n g t h em t o d escr i b e o n e o f t h e u l t i m a t
e g o o d s t h a t a co l l eg e o r u n i v er si t y
sh o u l d ser v e. So w h a t ex a ct l y d o w e m ea n b y l
i b er a l ed u ca t i o n , a n d w h y d o w e
ca r e so m u ch a b o u t i t ?
In speak ing of “liberal” education, w e certainly do n o t mean
an education that indoctrinates
students in the values of political liberalism, at least not in the
most obvious sense of the latter
phrase. R ather, w e use these w ords to describe an educational
tradition that celebrates and

21. nurtures human freedom. These day s lib e r al and libe r ty
have become w ords so mired in
controversy , embraced and reviled as they have been by the
far ends of the political spectrum,
that w e scarcely k now how to use them w ithout turning
them into slogans—but they can
hardly be separated from this educational tradition. Libe r al
derives from the Latin libe r alis,
meaning “of or relating to the liberal arts,” w hich in turn
derives from the Latin w ord libe r ,
meaning “free.” But the w ord actually has much deeper roots,
being ak in to the Old English
w ord le o d an , meaning “to grow ,” and leo d , meaning
“people.” It is also related to the Greek
w ord eleu ther o s, meaning “free,” and goes all the w ay back
to the Sansk rit w ord r o d hati,
meaning “one climbs,” “one grow s.” Fr e e d o m and g r o w
th: here, surely , are values that lie at the
very core of w hat w e mean w hen w e speak of a liberal
education.
Liberal education is built on these values: it aspires to nurture
the grow th of human talent
in the service of human freedom. So one very simple answ er to
my question is that liberally
educated people have been liberated by their education to
explore and fulfill the promise of
their ow n highest talents. But w hat might an education for
human freedom actually look lik e?
There’s the rub. Our current culture w ars, our struggles over
educational standards are all
ultimately about the concrete embodiment of abstract values lik
e “freedom” and “grow th” in
actual courses and textbook s and curricular requirements.
Should students be forced to tak e
courses in A merican history , and if so, w hat should those

22. courses contain? Should they be
forced to learn a foreign language, encounter a laboratory
science, master calculus, study
grammar at the expense of creative w riting (or the reverse),
read Plato or Shak espeare or Marx
or Darw in? Should they be required to tak e courses that foster
ethnic and racial tolerance?
Even if w e agree about the importance of freedom and grow th,
w e can still disagree quite a lot
about w hich curriculum w ill best promote these values. That is
w hy , w hen w e argue about
education, w e usually spend less time talk ing about core
values than about formal standards:
w hat are the subjects that all y oung people should tak e to help
them become educated adults?
This is not an easy question. May be that is w hy —in the spirit
of E. D. H irsch’s C u ltu r al
Lite r ac y and a thousand college course catalogs—our answ
ers to it often tak e the form of lists:
lists of mandatory courses, lists of required readings, lists of
essential facts, lists of the hundred
best novels w ritten in English in the tw entieth century , and so
on and on. This impulse
tow ard list mak ing has in fact been part of liberal education
for a very long time. In their
original medieval incarnation, the “liberal arts” w ere required
courses, more or less, that every
student w as supposed to learn before attaining the status of a
“free man.” There w as nothing
vague about the ar te s libe r ale s. They w ere a very concrete
list of seven subjects: the tr iv iu m ,

23. w hich consisted of grammar, logic, and rhetoric; and the qu ad
r iv iu m , w hich consisted of
arithmetic, geometry , astronomy , and music. Together, these w
ere the forms of k now ledge
w orthy of a free man. W e should remember the pow erful
class and gender biases that w ere
built into this vision of freedom. The “free men” w ho studied
the liberal arts w ere male
aristocrats; these specialized bodies of k now ledge w ere status
mark ers that set them apart from
“unfree” serfs and peasants, as w ell as from the members of
other vulgar and ignoble classes.
Our modern sense of liberal education has expanded from this
medieval foundation to include
a greater range of human talents and a much more inclusive
number of human beings, holding
out at least the dream that e v e r y o n e might someday be
liberated by an education that stands in
the service of human freedom.
A nd y et w hen w e try to figure out w hat this education for
human freedom might look
lik e, w e still mak e lists. W e no longer hold up as a required
curriculum the seven ar te s libe r ale s
of the medieval university ; w e no longer expect that the
classical nineteenth-century college
curriculum in Greek and Latin is enough to mak e a person
learned. But w e d o offer plenty of
other complicated lists w ith w hich w e try to identify the
courses and distribution
requirements that constitute a liberal education. Such
requirements vary somew hat from
institution to institution, but certain elements crop up
predictably . H ow ever complex the
curricular tables and credit formulas may become—and they
can get pretty baroque!—more

24. often than not they include a certain number of total credit
hours; a basic composition course;
at least pre-calculus mathematics; some credits in a foreign
language; some credits in the
humanities; some credits in the social sciences; some credits in
the natural sciences; and
concentrated study in at least one major discipline.
W e have obviously come a long w ay from the ar te s libe r
ale s—and y et I w orry that amid all
these requirements w e may be tempted to forget the ultimate
purpose of this thing w e call a
liberal education. No matter how deliberately they may have
been hammered out in
committee meetings, it’s not clear w hat these carefully
articulated and finely tuned
requirements have to do w ith hu m an fr eed o m .
A n d w h en w e t r y t o st a t e t h e p u r p o se o f su ch r
eq u i r em en t s, w e o ft en
fl o u n d er . H er e, fo r i n st a n ce, i s w h a t o n e i n st i
t u t i o n I k n o w w el l st a t es a s the
“Objects of a Liberal Education”: “(1) competency in
communication; (2) competency in using
the modes of thought characterist i c o f t h e m a j o r a r ea s
o f k n o w l ed g e; (3 ) a k n o w l ed g e
o f o u r b a si c cu l t u r a l h er i t a g e; (4 ) a t h o r o u g
h u n d er st a n d i n g o f a t l ea st o n e su b j ect
a r ea . ” T h i s is the k ind of language one expects from an
academic committee, I guess, but it is
hardly a statement that stirs the heart or inspires the soul.
One problem, I think , is that it is much easier to itemize the
requirements of a curriculum
than to describe the qualities of the human beings w e w ould
lik e that curriculum to produce.

25. A ll the required courses in the w orld w ill fail to give us a
liberal education if, in the act of
requiring them, w e forget that their purpose is to nurture
human freedom and grow th.
I w ould therefore lik e to return to my opening question and
try to answ er it (since I too find
lists irresistible) w ith a list of my ow n. My list consists not
of required courses but of personal
qualities: the ten qualities I most admire in the people I k now
w ho seem to embody the values
of a liberal education. How does one recognize liberally
educated people?
1. The y liste n an d the y he ar .
This is so simple that it may not seem w orth say ing, but in
our distracted and over-busy
age, I think it’s w orth declaring that educated people k now
how to pay attention—to others
and to the w orld around them. They w ork hard to hear w hat
other people say . They can
follow an argument, track logical reasoning, detect illogic,
hear the emotions that lie behind
both the logic and the illogic, and ultimately empathize w ith
the person w ho is feeling those
emotions.
2. The y r e ad an d the y u n d e r stan d .

26. This too is ridiculously simple to say but very difficult to
achieve, since there are so many
w ay s of reading in our w orld. Educated people can appreciate
not only the front page of the
Ne w Yo r k Tim e s but also the arts section, the sports
section, the business section, the science
section, and the editorials. They can gain insight from not only
TH E AMERIC AN SC H O L A R
a n d t h e Ne w Y o r k R e v i e w o f B o o ks b u t a l so
fr o m Sc i e n t i f i c Am e r i c a n , t h e
Ec o n o m i st , t h e Na t i o n a l En q u i r e r , Vo g u e , a
n d R e a d e r ’ s D i g e st . T h ey can enjoy John
Milton and John Grisham. But sk illed readers k now how to
read far more than just w ords.
They are moved by w hat they see in a great art museum and
w hat they hear in a concert hall.
They recognize extraordinary athletic achievements; they are
engaged by classic and
contemporary w ork s of theater and cinema; they find in
television a valuable w indow on
popular culture. W hen they w ander through a forest or a w
etland or a desert, they can identify
the w ildlife and interpret the lay of the land. They can glance
at a farmer’s field and tell the
difference betw een soy beans and alfalfa. They recognize fine
craftsmanship, w hether by a
cabinetmak er or an auto mechanic. And they can surf the World
Wide Web. All of these are w ay s in
w hich the ey es and the ears are attuned to the w onders that
mak e up the human and the
natural w orlds. N one of us can possibly master all these forms
of “reading,” but educated
people should be competent in many of them and curious about
all of them.
3. They c an talk w ith an y o n e.

27. Educated people k now how to talk . They can give a speech,
ask thoughtful questions, and
mak e people laugh. They can hold a conversation w ith a high
school dropout or a Nobel
laureate, a child or a nursing- home resident, a factory w ork er
or a corporate president.
Moreover, they participate in such conversations not because
they lik e to talk about
themselves but because they are genuinely interested in others.
A friend of mine say s one of
the most important things his father ever told him w as that w
henever he had a conversation,
his job w as “to figure out w hat’s so neat about w hat the other
person does.” I cannot imagine a
more succinct description of this critically important quality .
4. The y c an w r ite c le ar ly an d pe r su asiv e ly an d m
o v in g ly .
W hat goes for talk ing goes for w riting as w ell: educated
people k now the craft of putting
w ords on paper. I’m not talk ing about parsing a sentence or
composing a paragraph, but about
expressing w hat is in their minds and hearts so as to teach,
persuade, and move the person w ho
reads their w ords. I am talk ing about w riting as a form of
touching, ak in to the touching that
happens in an exhilarating conversation.
5. The y c an so lv e a w id e v ar ie ty o f pu zzle s an d pr

28. o ble m s.
The ability to solve puzzles requires many sk ills, including a
basic comfort w ith numbers, a
familiarity w ith computers, and the recognition that many
problems that appear to turn on
questions of quality can in fact be reinterpreted as subtle
problems of quantity . These are the
sk ills of the analy st, the manager, the engineer, the critic: the
ability to look at a complicated
reality , break it into pieces, and figure out how it w ork s in
order to do practical things in the
real w orld. Part of the challenge in this, of course, is the ability
to put reality back together
again after having brok en it into pieces—for only by so doing
can w e accomplish practical
goals w ithout violating the integrity of the w orld w e are try
ing to change.
6. The y r e spe c t r ig o r n o t so m u c h fo r its o w n
sake bu t as a w ay o f se e kin g tr u th.
Truly educated people love learning, but they love w isdom
more. They can appreciate a
closely reasoned argument w ithout being unduly impressed by
mere logic. They understand
that k now ledge serves values, and they strive to put these tw
o—k now ledge and values—into
constant dialogue w ith each other. The ability to recognize
true rigor is one of the most
important achievements in any education, but it is w orthless,
even dangerous, if it is not placed
in the service of some larger vision that also renders it humane.
7. The y pr ac tic e hu m ility , to le r an c e , an d se lf-c r

29. itic ism .
This is another w ay of say ing that they can understand the
pow er of other people’s dreams
and nightmares as w ell as their ow n. They have the
intellectual range and emotional generosity
to step outside their ow n experiences and prejudices, thereby
opening themselves to
perspectives different from their ow n. From this commitment to
tolerance flow all those
aspects of a liberal education that oppose parochialism and
celebrate the w ider w orld: study ing
foreign languages, learning about the cultures of distant
peoples, exploring the history of long-
ago times, discovering the many w ay s in w hich men and w
omen have k now n the sacred and
given names to their gods. W ithout such encounters, w e cannot
learn how much people
differ—and how much they have in common.
8. The y u n d e r stan d ho w to g e t thin g s d o n e in the
w o r ld .
In describing the goal of his Rhodes Scholarships, C ecil
Rhodes spok e of try ing to identify
y oung people w ho w ould spend their lives engaged in w hat
he called “the w orld’s fight,” by
w hich he meant the struggle to leave the w orld a better place
than they had found it. Learning
how to get things done in the w orld in order to leave it a better
place is surely one of the most
practical and important lessons w e can tak e from our
education. It is fraught w ith peril because
the pow er to act in the w orld can so easily be abused—but w e
fool ourselves if w e think w e can

30. avoid acting, avoid exercising pow er, avoid joining the w
orld’s fight. A nd so w e study pow er
and struggle to use it w isely and w ell.
9. The y n u r tu r e an d e m po w e r the pe o ple ar o u n
d the m .
Nothing is more important in tempering the exercise of pow er
and shaping right action
than the recognition that no one ever acts alone. Liberally
educated people understand that
they belong to a community w hose prosperity and w ell-being
are crucial to their ow n, and
they help that community flourish by mak ing the success of
others possible. If w e speak of
education for freedom, then one of the crucial insights of a
liberal education must be that the
freedom of the individual is possible only in a free community ,
and vice versa. It is the
community that empow ers the free individual, just as it is free
individuals w ho lead and
empow er the community . The fulfillment of high talent, the
just exercise of pow er, the
celebration of human diversity : nothing so redeems these things
as the recognition that w hat
seem lik e personal triumphs are in fact the achievements of our
common humanity .
10. They follow E. M. Forster’s injunction from Howards
End: “Only connect . . .”

31. More than any thing else, being an educated person means
being able to see connections
that allow one to mak e sense of the w orld and act w ithin it in
creative w ay s. Every one of the
qualities I have described here—listening, reading, talk ing, w
riting, puzzle solving, truth
seek ing, seeing through other people’s ey es, leading, w ork ing
in a community —is finally about
connecting. A liberal education is about gaining the pow er and
the w isdom, the generosity and
the freedom to connect.
I believe w e should measure our educational sy stem—w hether
w e speak of grade schools or
universities—by how w ell w e succeed in training children
and y oung adults to aspire to these
ten qualities. I believe w e should judge ourselves and our
communities by how w ell w e succeed
in fostering and celebrating these qualities in each of us.
But I must offer tw o caveats. The first is that my original
question—“W hat does it mean to
be a liberally educated person?”—is misleading, deeply so,
because it suggests that one can
somehow tak e a group of courses, or accumulate a certain
number of credits, or undergo an
obligatory set of learning experiences, and emerge liberally
educated at the end of the process.
N othing could be further from the truth. A liberal education is
not something any of us ever
ac hie v e ; it is not a state. R ather, it is a w ay of living in the
face of our ow n ignorance, a w ay of
groping tow ard w isdom in full recognition of our ow n folly , a
w ay of educating ourselves
w ithout any illusion that our educations w ill ever be
complete.

32. My second caveat has to do w ith individualism. It is no
accident that an educational
philosophy described as “liberal” is almost alw ay s articulated
in terms of the individuals w ho
are supposed to benefit from its teachings. I have similarly
implied that the ten qualities on my
list belong to individual people. I have asserted that liberal
education in particular is about
nurturing human freedom—helping y oung people discover and
hone their talents—and this too
sounds as if education exists for the benefit of individuals.
A ll this is fair enough, and y et it too is deeply misleading in
one crucial w ay . Education for
human freedom is also education for human community . The tw
o cannot exist w ithout each
other. Each of the qualities I have described is a craft or a sk ill
or a w ay of being in the w orld
that frees us to act w ith greater k now ledge or pow er. But
each of these qualities also mak es us
ever more aw are of the connections w e have w ith other people
and the rest of creation, and so
they remind us of the obligations w e have to use our k now
ledge and pow er responsibly . If I
am right that all these qualities are finally about connecting,
then w e need to confront one
further paradox about liberal education. In the act of mak ing us
free, it also binds us to the
communities that gave us our freedom in the first place; it mak
es us responsible to those
communities in w ay s that limit our freedom. In the end, it
turns out that liberty is not about
think ing or say ing or doing w hatever w e w ant. It is about
exercising our freedom in such a
w ay as to mak e a difference in the w orld and mak e a

33. difference for more than just ourselves.
And so I k eep returning to those tw o w ords of E. M. Forster’s:
“Only connect.” I have said
that they are as good an answ er as any I k now to the
question of w hat it means to be a
liberally educated person; but they are also an equally fine
description of that most pow erful
and generous form of human connection w e call lo v e . I do
not mean romantic or passionate
love, but the love that lies at the heart of all the great religious
faiths: not eros, but agape.
Liberal education nurtures human freedom in the service of
human community , w hich is to
say that in the end it celebrates love. W hether w e speak of
our schools or our universities or
ourselves, I hope w e w ill hold fast to this as our constant
practice, in the full depth and
richness of its many meanings: O n ly c o n n ec t.
From The Am er ic an Sc ho lar , Volume 67, No. 4, A utumn
1998. C opy right ® 1998 by W illiam C ronon.
W illiam C ronon, Frederick Jack son Turner Professor of H
istory , Geography , and Environmental
Studies at the U niversity of W isconsin-Madison, is the author
of Un c o m m o n Gr o u n d : Rethin kin g the
Hu m an Plac e in Natu r e and Natu r e’s Metr o po lis: Chic
ag o an d the Gr eat West, w hich w on the Bancroft
Prize in 1992.